Art forger jailed for four years

An art forger who "knocked up" a fake Egyptian statue in his garden shed within the space of three weeks has been jailed for four years and eight months.

Shaun Greenhalgh, 47, of Bolton, Greater Manchester, ran a major cottage industry in producing fake antiques and antiquities with the help of his elderly parents.

Sentencing him at Bolton Crown Court, Judge William Morris said Greenhalgh and his parents, George, 84, and Olive, 83, had conspired together to deceive the art world for 17 years.

Olive Greenhalgh was given a suspended jail term of 12 months, while her husband will be sentenced at a later date while the judge decides on his suitability for serving a custodial sentence.

Judge Morris told Shaun Greenhalgh: "This was an ambitious conspiracy of long duration based on your undoubted talent and based on the sophistication of the deceptions underpinning the sales and attempted sales.

"I speak of your talent but not in admiration. Your talent was misapplied to the ends of dishonest gain."

He said the forgeries undermined the marketplace and the reputations of the experts who authenticated the artworks.

All three defendants admitted conspiring to defraud art institutions between June 1989 and March last year at an earlier hearing. The Greenhalghs also pleaded guilty to money laundering the proceeds of the fake arts and antiques.

Their efforts raised a known total of around £850,000, with their biggest success managing to convince the local council-owned Bolton Museum to part with £440,000 for a fake statue of an Egyptian princess.

The antiquities and art were produced by Shaun Greenhalgh and sold by George Greenhalgh with the peripheral assistant of Olive Greenhalgh.